Thursday, December 22, 2011

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

It's that time of year... Bird feeders are up, bringing in more birds closer to buildings. Hawks are coming in to the feeders as well. (You are, after all, feeding the birds; hawks are birds too and appreciate the buffet table just as much as the songbirds.) Sunlight is shining from lower and different angles...

This inevitably leads to meetings between said birds and buildings, meetings that usually end up badly for the bird. Even when birds fly away from a window-strike, survival is not guaranteed due to the likelihood of brain injury causing eventual if not immediate death. (Consider all the recent hullabaloo about football players and traumatic brain injury, then imagine the effect of a wee little bird barreling into plate glass...)

But a window-strike death does give one an incredible opportunity to study the miracle that is a bird up close.

Please keep in mind that every native bird species is protected under the Migratory Bird Act; it is technically illegal to even possess so much as a feather of any native avian species. (Pigeons, starlings, house sparrows and domestic fowl, being non-native imports, are not covered under this law. Most parrots and their cousins require state if not federal permits to keep.)

If your domicile is subject to more-than-occasional window-strikes, first consider why. Have you removed window screens? Are your feeders close enough to the house so that birds don't build up too much speed when frightened off the feeder by a predator? Have you taken adequate measures to prevent reflection or physical impact on larger, non-screened expanses of glass? There are any number of preventative measures that may be taken to reduce injury and death caused by windows.

If you do find dead birds below your windows, considering asking your local nature center if they have a salvage permit and if they collect specimens from the public. Our local centers maintain such permits, and send specimens to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. By noting time, date, place and cause of death of the deceased, you can actually contribute to scientific studies and a bird's death need not be in vain.

Chatter straight to your In box...

Cape May Weather (Wildwood Station)

What is Chatter?

A blog (with photos) of light-heartedly amusing and subversively educational ramblings about Nature from the minute to the infinite, peppered with random thoughts and occasional appearances by the author's felines.

Why Wren?

A wren is a little brown bird who chatters all of the time in a voice too big for its size. They remind me of, well, me. And they make me smile. Hope these pages do the same for you!

Who is this Wren, anyway?

Hi, I’m Wren, a happily single forty-something with a degree in biology who may or may not be working in the field (career subject to change without notice). I’m a definite hermit and homebody and currently share my nest with way too many indoor-only cats, a mix of cage birds, one snake, and whatever houseplants survive my sometimes-green thumb, all set in my own little corner of the world which is home to deer, coons, possums, rabbits, voles, moles, mice & (too cool) coyotes, 100+ species of birds, snakes, turtles, lizards, frogs, toads...